Antigravity CLI Review: Google's Gemini CLI Replacement

When Google retires the free Gemini CLI for individual users on June 18, 2026, this is what it's pointing them to: Antigravity CLI, invoked as the agy command. It's the official successor, it's backed by Google's Gemini 3 models, and — for the beginners and hobbyists who made Gemini CLI popular — it's a noticeably worse deal on the one thing that mattered most.

Here's an honest look at what it is and whether it's worth your time.

What Is Antigravity CLI?

Antigravity CLI is the terminal surface of Google's broader Antigravity platform (which also includes a desktop app and an agent-management interface). Where Gemini CLI was an open-source, Apache 2.0 tool, Antigravity CLI is closed-source, built in Go, and designed around asynchronous background agents — you can kick off work and let it run while you do other things.

It's a capable agent. It runs on Gemini 3 models, supports the kind of multi-step, multi-file work you'd expect from a modern terminal agent, and shares architecture with the rest of the Antigravity platform. The technology isn't the problem. The terms are.

The Free Tier Problem

This is the headline, and it's not a good one.

Gemini CLI's free tier gave individual users 1,000 requests per day. Antigravity CLI's free tier is roughly 20 agent requests per day — and that number is itself the result of repeated cuts: the platform launched in late 2025 at 250 requests/day and was reduced to about 20 within roughly a month.

For the site's core audience — a beginner learning to code without a budget — 20 agent requests a day does not sustain real practice. A single afternoon of building can blow through it. The "free, generous terminal agent" that Gemini CLI represented simply doesn't have a like-for-like replacement here.

Pricing: Pro, Ultra, and Opaque Credits

Beyond the free tier, the paid structure is where the trust problem deepens:

• Pro — around $20/month
• Ultra — around $250/month
• Pay-as-you-go — roughly $25 for 2,500 credits, with credits priced at $0.01 each

The catch is that Google has not transparently documented how many tokens or operations one credit actually buys. That means you can't reliably estimate what a given task will cost before you run it — a real problem if you're trying to avoid surprise charges. Combined with a free tier that's been cut more than once, the overall picture is a pricing model that asks for a lot of trust.

Should You Migrate from Gemini CLI?

It depends entirely on how you used Gemini CLI:

• Light, occasional use, already in Google's ecosystem: Antigravity CLI is the least-friction official move. Install it, sign in, and ~20 requests a day may genuinely be enough.
• You relied on the generous free tier to learn or build daily: the honest answer is that this isn't the tool that replaces it. A local-model open-source agent is the durable free path now — see Goose, which runs at $0 per request on your own machine, and our roundup of free terminal AI coding agents.

For the full migration mechanics (and why the free Gemini CLI is going away), see Gemini CLI is being retired. For the broader Antigravity platform beyond the CLI, see what is Google Antigravity.

The Verdict

Antigravity CLI is a technically capable terminal agent — Gemini 3, async agents, a polished platform around it. The problem is everything around the technology: a free tier that's been cut to roughly 20 requests a day, a closed-source codebase, and a credit system opaque enough that you can't price your own usage.

For a beginner or vibe coder on a budget, that adds up to a downgrade from what Gemini CLI offered, not an upgrade. It earns its place only as the path of least resistance for existing Google users with light needs.

Use it if: you're already in Google's ecosystem, your usage is light, and ~20 agent requests a day covers you.

Skip it (for now) if: you want a genuinely free terminal agent — a local model through Goose is the more honest answer — or you want predictable pricing before you commit.